Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Elder Estrada

Well this week was rather great, we were able to teach a sum of 42 lessons and were able to find 19 new people to teach. 42 is the alltime misison record for lessons taught in a week. The prior record was 41 which was set by Elder Jimenez(the one who wrote Johanna) and his companion Elder Ramirez, and the record before that was set by Elder Rhead and I at 40. I know its not about numbers or anything like that but its just quite interesting to see how the mission level can raise.The best part of it all is that we had tons of fun while doing so. Well one of the miracles that we had this week happened yesterday. Well sunday morning we did splits to go and pick up investigators, Elder Harris picked up Mercy, who will be baptized this weekend, well when they got to church, Elder Harris and the accompaning member where teaching her and they asked her if it be alright to announce her baptism on saturday, she said, yeah about that. She went on to explain that she was thinking of delaying her baptism because of problems that she has been having with her boyfriend and how he is just not too great of a man to her so things where left at that for the moment. I had no clue what was going on because i had shown up late because the investigator that i had gone to pic up was a bit slow. So i came into the sacrament meeting a few minutes late and there where no seats next to Elder Harris the member and the investigator they had brought so i sat down with the member who accompanied me and some other people. So during the last part of sacrament meeting her 2 year old son fell and smashed his head on the wall and was about to start screaming so my companion to save things grabbed the child and ran him out to the hall so that he wouldn´t shout in the meeting (the mother is on crutches so thats why he grabbed the child), all this happened in a split second so i hadnt even realized it yet. Well she than started getting up and I saw that my companion was leaving the meeting so I followed aswell. When I got out in the hall turns out there was a member there so Elder Harris had handed the child to him and was coming to go get the mother and I. So finally we where all in the hallway and the child was just yelling his guts out. After a few moments he calmed down again, well we started talking and found it a right moment to go and show her the baptismal font, the member that was in the hallway accompanied us. Well when we showed her the font, we had a great lesson with her talked about the blessing the Holy Ghost is to us in our lives and the blessings we can benefit from by having this gift. Well sacrament was ending and we had to get her to class and so we decided to take her into a room and finish with a prayer and have her ask God what to do. We went to a room and vefore we started praying i felt inspired to tell her to ask God those specific things and to promise her that if she did so, and listened, she would recieve and answer to her prayers before the church meetings where over. So she prayed and we parted to our corresponding classroom, she stayed in the guarderia with her son so that he can get used to the other children there and the teachers. Well after that second hour we went to Elders Quorum and we did our "missionary minute" which is a time they give us to tell what is going on, have a member share their testimony of when they have helped us in the week and ask members for times of avelability. After our missionary minute we went back to our seats and than i looked out in the hallway and i saw a spanish lady there looking at things in the hall. I didnt recongnize her so I told my companion and we went out and talke to her and gave her a tour of the chapel. Well after that we decided to scare the little kids in the guarderia and see how Mercy was doing and so we went to the window outside and looked into the guarderia and said boo, the children laughed and Mercy came to the window to talk. She told us she had talked to her boyfriend on the phone and had told him some things and well she had felt good about it. She said she had sort of gotten an answer, she felt she was on the path. So my companion said, Mercy, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized this weekend? and she said yes. To me that was the biggest miracle and it involved other little miracles to make that big one happen, I truly am glad to be able to have the spirit with us and guide us and tell us the things we must say and promise the things we must promise if necessary. Trully there are lots of miracles happening everyday and I am greatful to see and be part of them they help me grow stronger and stronger day by day. Sorry this story was so long, now i dont have time to report on anything else but hope all is well. Much love Elder Estrada #1 oh there is a photo included, its the tribute to the virgin, this whole past week was fiestas here to her.